Your Lonely Nights Are Over by Adam Sass

Author:Adam Sass [Sass, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2023-09-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

COLE

You survived the weekend, mijo, but don’t get cocky, Uncle Nando texts as Dearie and I get ready to leave for school Monday morning—which they miraculously haven’t canceled yet. Uncle Nando advises me that Agent Astadourian allowed me my space this weekend because of the Sandman lockdown, but the minute school is over, I have to go to the sheriff’s station to give my full report on Paul.

Over breakfast, Dearie, his mom, and I catch each other up on our weekend discoveries: Grover had been tracking Dearie’s location and messages (classic great boyfriend behavior), the killer now has the tracker, Justin’s chimes didn’t immediately alert the officers outside his home, and Leo fully melted down with anxiety that the killings had started again.

“People lie,” Dearie says with a deadly flatness as he sips coffee.

“Maybe,” I agree timidly. “And now that we know there’s two killers working together, alibis are out the window.” I watch Mrs. Dearie staring deeply into her coffee. “What do you think?”

She shuts her eyes. “I think this might be my last case. I wanted to be a small-town investigator, not Clarice Starling.” When she opens her eyes, she reappears with renewed energy. “It’s Astadourian’s case now. She’s building a theory that . . . I don’t agree with.”

My throat pinches closed. It’s me. Astadourian’s theory is me.

Mrs. Dearie squeezes my hand. “We’re fighting her. I don’t want to bring you boys into this any more than you already are, but I need you on your guard. She is ruling out Leo, but I think at the very least he knows something he hasn’t told us.” She pauses for a moment. “Something’s bothering me about the first murder. Gretchen. Everyone in your club was conveniently pulled away in different places at the time of the meeting. At the exact time of the murder, Leo called Tabatha Drake five times.”

“She was divorcing him, right?” Dearie says, mug pressed to his cheek. “He was probably harassing her.”

His mother nods. “Possible. Astadourian thinks so too. But . . .” Dearie and I lean closer. “A few minutes later, she called him back. If he was harassing her, why call back?”

Dearie shrugs. “When your partner’s an asshole, sometimes it makes you act weird.”

Mrs. Dearie and I exchange quick, pitying glances. Depression has snatched my bestie by the throat this morning.

“There’s one more thing,” Mrs. Dearie says. “Between the five unanswered Leo calls and the time she calls him back, Tabatha took a call from her father.”

“Ray called her?” I ask. “He said they never talk.”

“Well, they did that day. She told us Ray’s call was irrelevant. But all of this bothers me because her Leo call took her outside the school. If she hadn’t called him back, she would’ve likely witnessed the murder. Seems important.”

As I trace my finger along the rim of my mug, a sick idea comes to me. “Is there a way to check where Leo was when he made those calls? What if he was in the school? That could prove—”

Gathering up our empty plates, Mrs.

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